"Malaria has long been a global scourge that drains the
lives and finances of villages and whole countries every
year, afflicting nearly half a billion people with acute
disease," said Alfred Sommer, dean of the Bloomberg School
of Public Health. "A child is killed by malaria every 30
seconds of every hour of every day of every year. The donor
has committed a fortune -- not for personal reward, but to
win a victory for mankind."
"This gift is a visionary investment in the health of
millions and the future of humanity, especially in the
developing world," said William R.
Brody, president of the university. "We are determined
to make that investment pay off."

Malaria not only kills, it also impoverishes,
suppressing economic growth in Africa by up to 1.3 percent a
year, a study released last year by the World Health
Organization said. Had malaria been eradicated 35 years ago,
the study said, sub-Saharan Africa's gross domestic product
now would be $100 billion, or 32 percent, larger.

But the fight against the disease is losing ground.
Anti-malaria drugs are losing effectiveness as resistant
strains develop around the world, according to the WHO.
Eradication of parasite-carrying mosquitoes with such agents
as DDT carries environmental concerns. Attempts to develop a
vaccine have failed. Research is underfunded, because
malaria is a relatively small problem in the developed
world. Pharmaceutical companies have limited economic
incentive to develop drugs aimed at a market in the
developing world.

The Johns Hopkins Malaria Institute will "wipe the
slate clean," Sommer said, and take a fresh look at the
malaria problem with new scientific tools, such as genetic
sequencing and bioinformatics, that are just being developed
and applied in other areas.

"We will bring together outstanding young scientists
from multiple disciplines, not necessarily malaria experts,"
Sommer said. "We'll teach them about malaria and put them
together in a critical mass, the goal being an innovative
vaccine" and other new anti-malarial drugs.

The institute will open with four lead researchers
already on the faculty of the Bloomberg School, and will add
three or four a year for several years, plus associated
research personnel and graduate students, Sommer said. The
researchers will be specialists in such fields as immunology
and vaccine development; statistical analysis of genetic
data and populations studies; the biology of malaria
parasites and their mosquito hosts; and molecular
parasitology. The institute will also establish core service
centers to study the genome of the parasite and the
mosquito; the proteins produced by genes in the parasite,
the mosquito and humans; and what happens to cells during
the life cycle of the parasite and the course of the
disease.

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Malaria Institute will
collaborate with scientists across the United States and
around the world and with WHO's "Roll Back Malaria" program,
aimed at halving the disease's worldwide impact by 2010,
Sommer said.

The gift funding the institute is not designated as
endowment and will be spent over 10 years to maximize its
impact, Sommer said. The institute is expected to attract
additional funding from government and private sources, he
said.

The $100 million gift matches the largest previous gift
in Johns Hopkins history, the
$100 million given by alumnus and news media
entrepreneur Michael Bloomberg during the recent Johns Hopkins Initiative
campaign. Bloomberg's gift benefitted all the university's
schools. The School of Public Health, which received the
largest share, was renamed last month in recognition of
Bloomberg's devotion to an organization that has
traditionally had difficulty attracting financial support
commensurate with its impact on world health.

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